


Fantod Ficlets

by j_quadrifrons



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Amputation, Angst and Feels, Beholding, Canon-Typical Creepy Artifacts, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Dogs, Gen, Nightmares, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Short ficlets, fun with pronouns, prompt fills, so much Beholding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-26 02:18:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 6,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19758571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_quadrifrons/pseuds/j_quadrifrons
Summary: Short fics for various characters with prompts from Edward Gorey's Fantod Pack.





	1. Basira: The Limb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/post/186125222101/justasmalltownai-asked-for-basira-content-note) [eyemoji](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyemoji/pseuds/eyemoji) asked for Basira. Content note for amputation imagery, nightmares, anxiety.

Basira starts to run, though she can’t see anything. The hallways are pitch black but she knows her way through the station house, knows where to turn and where to put her shoulder into a door. It seems to go on forever. The route is exactly as she remembers it but it never ends, or maybe she’s just not getting anywhere. Her heart is pounding in her ears and every instinct screams run. She can’t remember what she’s running from.

She slams into the glass door of the entrance but it doesn’t open, even though it’s a fire exit and it doesn’t even lock from this direction. She reaches out to turn the lock that shouldn’t be there and her hand just - isn’t there. She reaches again but she has nothing to reach with. Panic thrums under her breastbone.

There’s a tap on the glass and Basira looks up to see herself on the other side of the door. It isn’t a reflection. The other Basira smiles, not kindly, and waves at her with the arm Basira doesn’t have. She’s wearing her mother’s ring on her middle finger. Basira tries to throw herself at the door again but she can’t get any leverage to move. The other Basira lowers her hand and starts to pull the door open.

Basira wakes up panting, her whole body shaking with tension, clutching at Daisy so tight she has to force her hands to unclench one finger at a time. It helps, grounds her in her body again. It’s all there. Of course it is.

“Ow,” Daisy says sleepily, and Basira huffs out a laugh into her shoulder. Of course she wouldn’t wake up until Basira stopped holding on. “You okay?” she asks.

Basira has to lick her lips, work saliva back into her mouth before she can answer. “Yeah,” she says, and thankfully it sounds like the truth. “That – mannequin thing,” she explains. She’d told Daisy about it already, the latest Section case she’d been called out on, a missing persons where the family of the man who’d gone missing had found an old, decaying mannequin in their garden two days after they’d last seen him. His wife swore it looked just like him. When the officers had picked it up to bring it in for evidence processing, the right leg had fallen off, and the poor woman had a panic attack.

That had been a month ago, and there’s been no sign of the guy. Basira doesn’t expect there ever will be.

“Yeah,” Daisy says, running her hand up and down Basira’s back lazily. She relaxes a little more. “Well. No mannequins here, go back to sleep.”

“Sure,” Basira says, curling back in close to Daisy’s side, letting the steady heartbeat lull her back to sleep.


	2. Agnes: The Blue Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/post/186126686412/agnesmontague-asked-for-agnes-naturally-in) [julie4697](https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie4697) asked for Agnes (naturally!) In this one you can see how much British children’s literature I’ve read (it’s a lot).

“I want a dog,” Agnes told Arthur when she was eight years old.

“Absolutely not.” He didn’t hesitate, nor look up from his desk. Agnes didn’t know what kind of work Arthur did at his desk, but certainly did a lot of it. Diego said it was busywork, making himself feel in control by pretending they were an official church instead of embracing their potential and understanding that they were so much more, but Arthur ignored him. Everyone ignored Diego, really.

“Penny says I should understand how normal people live,” Agnes argued. “Normal human children have dogs.”

“Did Penny say you could have a dog?” It wasn’t a question. Penny would never promise something like that without checking with Arthur first.

Agnes looked down at her shoes. “No,” she muttered.

“No,” Arthur agreed. He put down his pen and looked up at her at last, not without sympathy. “Also, normal human children can pet a dog without its fur catching on fire.”

He had a point there, Agnes had to admit. She still had to be careful touching the rest of the family sometimes. An ordinary dog wouldn’t stand a chance. She considered an alternative briefly, but she didn’t really think a dog could be made over into one of them.

She still wanted a dog. She felt it would fill a hole in her life. Oh, there was always someone around, always someone to talk to, but they were all grown-ups and they always wanted to teach Agnes something, or tell her what not to do, or rant in her general direction about the glory of the flame. Which was fine, as far as it went, but it wasn’t _enough_. Agnes wanted something more.

There was a park near the house where Agnes liked to sit sometimes and watch the people go by. She wasn’t allowed to talk to them, of course, so she tucked herself into the shadow of the trees so that no one would try to make friends. She had to be careful about that, too, especially when it hadn’t rained and the fallen leaves and twigs piled up kindling-dry, but at least it was good practice.

And it was there, running pine needes through her fingers and burning them to sweet-smelling ash before they hit the ground, that she saw the dog.

It was a skinny, frightened thing, huddled in the shadows just as she was, trying not to be seen. Agnes froze. When the dog knew she’d seen it, it bared its teeth, but instead of growling it whined low in its throat.

“It’s all right,” Agnes said very softly. This was how you talked to frightened animals. She knew that from books. It thrilled her to be able to put her knowledge to use. “It’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you.” She sat on her hands to prove her point. The dog whined again, but it didn’t move. “Are you hurt? I hope not, who’d hurt such a pretty dog like you.”

She remembered, suddenly, the sandwich in her pocket that she’d made in the hopes that she wouldn’t have to go home for lunch. It was ham and pickle. She wasn’t sure how dogs felt about pickles, but she was pretty sure they liked ham.

Agnes carefully eased the sandwich, only a little squashed, out of her pocket and unwrapped it. She crumpled the wrapper back in her pocket and inched forward to set the sandwich down within the dog’s reach. Then she moved back and sat on her hands again.

The dog didn’t move until she was sat back down, but then it got up – Agnes was very relieved to see that it wasn’t injured after all – and sniffed carefully at the sandwich before devouring it in two bites. Then it sat back on its haunches and panted happily.

“Good boy,” Agnes said, and the dog seemed to grin at her. “I can bring you another one tomorrow, all right? And we won’t tell Arthur.”


	3. Sasha: The Écorché

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/post/186127576607/sazandorable-asked-for-sasha-and-the-cards-gave) [sazandorable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sazandorable/pseuds/Aza) asked for Sasha and the cards gave me the perfect prompt because I’ve been wanting to write Sasha in Artifact Storage! I had to look up what an [écorché](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89corch%C3%A9) was. There’s definitely one of these in Artifact Storage.

This wasn’t the kind of thing Sasha had expected out of a museum studies degree. Of course everybody hoped to work for the British Museum or the V&A, but everyone also knew that you had to pay your dues in weird little underfunded museums before you could hope for anything like that.

The Magnus Institute was not a weird little underfunded museum. Its collections weren’t open to the public – they weren’t even open to the researchers and academics who had to submit credentials and abstracts before they were allowed into the library. But the Institute paid well, and they’d been looking for someone with collections and cataloging experience at the same time the last of Sasha’s roommates had taken a new job and moved out of London.

On reflection, she maybe should have paid more attention to the part of the job description that read, “Must be willing to handle a variety of objectionable and sometimes disturbing artefacts.”

They didn’t receive new items very often, and those they did were handled by people with much more seniority. Sasha’s job was mostly sorting through and properly cataloging the immense backlog of material. Unsurprisingly for an organization with “Founded 1818” on the plaque outside, most of their holdings looked like an eccentric Victorian collector’s attic, if that collector had a taste for the exceptionally macabre. Everything was labeled, at least, but most often the note had nothing more than a name (the donor?) and a date (date acquired? Although some of them preceded the Institute’s founding by decades).

The collections weren’t the only weird thing. Instead of a computer she was given a typewriter – not even electric, an old manual model, and where they got the ribbon for it Sasha had no idea – and a stack of catalog cards. She rarely saw her co-workers or her boss, even when she ventured out of Artifact Storage to the common break room, but the way the researchers gossiped made her wonder if that wasn’t for the best.

Today she was working through a box labeled, charmingly, “Flesh.” On the desk next to her typewriter was an écorché figure about twelve inches tall. It was an exceptional example, really. It was fairly lightweight, probably built on a wooden core, and the exposed musculature was carved out of a thick layer of soft leather. The details were exquisitely fine. It had probably been a Victorian doctor’s reference or teaching tool. Despite the age, the leather wasn’t worn or cracked at all, and the red paint still glistened, adding to the illusion of reality.

The tag was one of the sparse ones, reading only, “J. Fanshawe, 1833.” Sasha picked it up to check the base for an inscription or maker’s mark and nearly dropped it in horror. It didn’t feel like leather at all. It was warm, despite the perpetual chill in her tiny office, and a little slick, like –

 _Like fresh meat_ , her internal narration supplied helpfully. She set it down hurriedly and scrubbed her hand on her trousers. It didn’t seem to have left any residue but she could still feel it on her palm, the sensation of having picked up a raw steak in her bare hands.

“Okay,” she said out loud into the silence. She reached for the gloves she used to handle the more delicate items and she gave the écorché a stern glare. “Okay. This job pays really well,” she reminded herself. “Really, really well. And you’re going to get another paycheck soon, and then all of this will seem worthwhile again.” At least, she hoped so. There were plenty more things left in the box.


	4. Jon: The Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/post/186133017536/somuchbetterthanthat-asked-for-jon-ive-written) [RavenXavier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenXavier/pseuds/RavenXavier) asked for Jon. I’ve written so much of these two in the past few weeks that apparently I can’t stop? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Jon had never cared much for the sea. He grew up with it, a constant presence of cold winds and salt spray, drying seaweed and gulls and fish and tourists. His grandmother had been very firm on its dangers, a reasonable concern since Jon had been the sort of child inclined to wander off, and while he had learned to swim it had never been something he had considered doing for fun.

So when he received an invitation to meet with Peter Lukas, finally, aboard his ship, the first thing he thought of was that seaside smell of salt and rot, even though this far up the Thames it was more mud and chemicals than anything.

“You can’t seriously be considering going,” Basira told him. “You know it’s a trap.”

“He wouldn’t risk doing me any permanent damage,” Jon said defensively. “If he even could.”

“Kidnapping’s not permanent,” Basira said stubbornly, but she didn’t try to keep him from going.

It did feel like a trap, in all honesty, going out to the docks in the early morning, before even the fishing boats struck out. A heavy fog brought the range of his vision down to under half a mile, and Jon rolled his eyes at the dramatics to cover the way it set his teeth on edge.

There was no one on the dock as he climbed the gangway over the side, no one on the deck to greet him. He closed his eyes and Knew the way to the bridge and to the captain’s cabin, though he couldn’t tell if there was anyone in either place. After a moment’s consideration, he decided to start with the former.

Peter Lukas was waiting for him there, leaning against a panel of instruments and computer screens, wearing a double-breasted white jacket and a captain’s cap. He looked, as described, pale as a corpse, and about as friendly as one.

“You look ridiculous,” Jon told him. He felt his irritation was justified; it was _very_ early, and he’d been sent on a long walk for a pointless meeting, and the monster smiling at him from across the room had spent the last seven months doing God knows what to Martin.

Peter didn’t seem offended, just shrugged, tossed the cap down on the console beside him, and said, “I thought I should play the part.” He smiled like a shark, and Jon stared him down. There was nothing to Know about Peter, no hint of his thoughts or a suggestion that he had a story to tell, though Jon was sure he had plenty. But he wasn’t going to give Peter the satisfaction of asking what he was planning, and he was not going to take the risk that his compulsion would be just as ineffective as his Knowing. Not until he had to.

After only a moment Peter relented, clearly uninterested in whatever Jon was trying to prove. “I’d like to call a truce,” he said. “Pool our resources. There are bigger things at play than all your personal dramas, however entertaining it’s been so far.”

“Really,” Jon said flatly, scrambling for a response that wasn’t a desperate flow of questions. God, there was _so much_ he still didn’t know, and it ate at him like a cancer. “And you had to bring me all the way out here for that?”

“You don’t expect me to negotiate terms in your place of power, do you?”

“So I should do it in yours?” Jon muttered. He was beginning to feel a headache coming on. “What about Elias?”

Peter put on a blatantly false look of innocence. “Elias is in prison, Archivist. What does he have to do with this.”

“Fine,” Jon snapped. He should walk away now, before he did anything stupid. He shouldn’t have come in the first place. He thought of Martin and the way he wouldn’t meet Jon’s eyes the last time he’d tried to speak to him. “I’m going to regret this. What do you want?”

Peter grinned.


	5. Helen: The Urn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/post/186133074146/cruelestmonth-asked-for-helen-featuring-fun-with) [cruelest_month](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruelest_month/pseuds/cruelest_month) asked for Helen. Featuring fun with pronouns, because what’s a Magnus Archives character if I can’t project messily all over them?

It’s never lonely in her corridors. She would have expected it to be, before. When she was Helen Richardson who ran to and fro and up and down in them, desperate to find an exit. Helen Richardson had been sociable, had many friends she saw regularly, parents she visited every third weekend, an ex-husband and an ex-girlfriend she was still on good terms with. Helen Richardson had never liked to be alone with her own thoughts.

Michael had been lonely. E could still feel em sometimes, rattling around in the remnants of emself. E was less lonely now, but no happier. Then again, happiness had never come into it for Michael. Helen thinks e might be happy, but e isn’t sure.

Helen knows there are others like them somewhere, the ones that weren’t torn apart by what Michael and Gertrude did. (They remember that very clearly, the _certainty_ , the _reality_ , the feeling of being tied down and _known_. It makes them shudder to think of it, so they don’t.) They’ve never felt the need to track them down, really, those other manifestations of madness, but the Archivist has many stories. Melanie has been bringing some of them to them. They’re all very interesting. And they’re – curious.

So it is that Helen opens a door into a corner of the Magnus Institute where ze has never been and steps through into Artifact Storage. It’s pleasingly dark, although it is the middle of the night, so perhaps that’s logical. Ze doesn’t need the light to see zir way, anyway. And Melanie had said it would be better if ze went when the staff weren’t there.

He picks his way carefully through the rooms filled with objects, the taste of their different affiliations mingling in the air. It’s all very organized, which he doesn’t like, so he focuses on the things that aren’t. The scent of puppets in a room that shines with emptiness. The shattered remnants of a piece of furniture, hacked to bits but still reeking of power. The mess of books all shelved together, jangling and discordant, for the sake of their human keepers’ convenience. It helps, a little.

At the end of a long corridor per finds, in a room all alone, an urn. It feels suitable, pleasing to per. The patterns along its side twist and writhe delightfully and, sensing a presence, it throbs with hunger. It feels familiar, and Helen’s corridors throb in response. Per reaches out to stroke a finger across the neck of the urn, and the patterns twist in per wake. “Hello,” per says. “You are like me.”

“Not,” the urn says in response, but it is lying. Helen picks the urn up carefully in long, long fingers. It could bring it back with it, into its corridors, create for it a pedestal and a room of its own. But it would not make it less lonely, for Helen is not lonely, and it would not be happy there. There would, for one thing, be nothing for it to eat.

Ne sets it down again, very gently, and the urn rattles happily back into place. “It was pleasant to meet you,” ne says, because Helen Richardson’s and Michael Shelley’s parents had all been very firm about manners. Then ne picks nem way back to nis door, past the books, past the not-table, past the puppeteer weaving silently in the sky in the sea. It is good to be back in nis corridors again. Correct. Ne breaks the walls and puts them back together again in a different order because ne can. Still. It was interesting. Ne will have to tell Melanie about nis expedition. She will certainly find it interesting, and perhaps she will tell the Archivist, and then ne will come yell at nem about it. That would be interesting, too.


	6. Elias: The Ancestor & The Yellow Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/post/186148000196/wildehacked-and-amber-and-thisriverdraws-all) [Wildehack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyleet/pseuds/Wildehack) and [Amber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber/pseuds/Amber) and [River](https://thisriverdraws.tumblr.com/) ALL asked for Elias, so he got two cards! Sure enough it’s half about Jon, but you know, that’s very on brand for Elias.

They forget about him when he’s not there. It’s Elias’s most useful trick and it’s not a trick at all, just ordinary human forgetfulness. When he was in his office, two floors away, they had forgotten about him more often than not. It makes the whole imprisonment business seem like a waste of time, really. It hasn’t changed anything, aside from giving Peter a reason to spend all his time in the Institute that doesn’t involve scandalizing all the staff and ruining Elias’s reputation for emotionless restraint.

He doesn’t have plans. He knows that’s what they think of him, down in the Archives; they think that they’re all caught up in some elaborate plan of his, that if he’s in prison he can’t pull their strings. But there are no strings – at least, not of his making. His role is not to plan, not to orchestrate or control. His role is only to watch.

It’s harder than it seems. Elias might cultivate an air of remote unconcern, but that is only because a good manager never shows uncertainty to his subordinates. And Jon might be the most talented Archivist since Jonah Magnus started his search for an appropriate vessel for the Watcher’s Crown, but he has yet to go two months without giving Elias fits of swooping terror. Even flat on his back in a hospital bed he managed to walk the line between choice and refusal for a worryingly long time. Watching him walk out of one of the Distortion’s doors clutching his own bone in his hand had left Elias sleepless for weeks.

Not that he has to sleep these days. Still, it’s the principle of the thing.

So if he dispenses tidbits of information here and there, if he shares what the Eye knows with the Eye’s servants, it isn’t with any ulterior motive, or even with any particular end in mind, apart from the usual. He has always been perfectly honest and very clear, to Jon at least, what his motives are. If Jon chooses to forget about him, well. There isn’t anything Elias can do about that.

(Which isn’t strictly true, he knows somewhere on a level below consciousness. The connection between him and his Archivist is strong enough that even from this distance Elias could probably ensure he knows anything Elias wants him to know. Not that there is much Elias wants to tell him. It is still important that Jon find things out for himself, that his powers continue to develop. Even if he has already outstripped any expectations, there is still more coming. But just to touch his mind, to offer a reminder that Elias is here and watching –

If he allows it to be an option the temptation would be far too strong, so it is not an option. He can wait. He has waited this long.)

And it’s a small matter to escape the prison when he chooses. Elias takes the eyes of a bird that perches on the metal fence in the prison yard, lets it find its own path for a while before nudging it down the river and among the familiar facades of fine old stone buildings. He doesn’t need eyes to know when the Archivist is leaving the Archives, but still he must watch.

Elias watches his Archivist make his way through the steady stream of foot traffic, confident at first, then slower as he searches for something in particular, something unfamiliar. He watches his Archivist go into a coffee shop, order something off the menu that he will not drink, and sit down in a corner. He watches his Archivist watch the crowd, waiting for something he does not yet know to anticipate.

Alone in his cell, Elias smiles.


	7. Zolf Smith: The Ladder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/post/186194678336/flammenkobold-asked-for-zolf-smith-sorry-this) [Flammenkobold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flammenkobold/pseuds/Flammenkobold) asked for Zolf Smith! This is the first thing I’ve ever written for this fandom and I’m only on ep 39, which is way sooner than I’d normally try to write fic for something with 130+ episodes out. But then I spent a couple days binge-listening and I got to this bit and I had an idea.

He’s too exhausted to sleep, too wired from adrenaline and terror and relief to do anything but lie there and run the whole thing over and over in his head: the Navigator, the boat, the storm, the sea in his face and in his lungs and over his head, so many places it was not supposed to be. He replays, over and over again, watching Sasha go down under the waves and failing to come back up, until the memory stops choking him.

He thinks about the first storm he’d weathered at sea, of the call of _man overboard_ , the way he just dove in without thinking. The naval vessel was a lot bigger than their little driftwood prayer of a boat, and he’d had to haul the man all the way up the ladder and over the side. _Couldn’t do that now_ , he thinks, a little hysterical, _not if I tried_. He swallows the hysteria down, puts it in a box, buries it at sea. They all survived. They’re fine.

On the other side of the jury-rigged tent that they’d practically set up on top of her, Sasha sleeps peacefully. So peacefully, in fact, Zolf almost wants to get up and check that she hasn’t suffocated in the fine sand. She did flop down pretty bonelessly as soon as she hit dry land. But she shifts a little, sighs almost inaudibly, and Zolf relaxes again. Alive and well. She’d taken to it like a born sailor, though - by the morning she’d probably be willing to try the whole thing again. He says a little prayer of gratitude that he’s already cast the little driftwood boat back out to sea; one trial of faith is plenty for him, thanks.

Hamid sleeps curled in a tight bundle, as though if he holds himself tight enough he’ll stop shaking. With the number of layers he’s got wrapped around him, it can’t be from the cold. _He’ll be fine_ , Zolf tells himself, but he’s not sure. He’s been fine so far, after the fact, but there’s only so much of that a body can take before all that banked and muffled fear comes back out in the worst possible way. Probably Zolf should have a word with him about it one of these days, offer some suggestions that have helped people he’s known. Would Hamid respond better to a personal confession or to a little more distance? He’s fairly sure Hamid wouldn’t respond well to anything at all. He doesn’t seem to mind them seeing him cry, but his appearance is everything to him. Zolf doesn’t know what to make of it, and it makes him wary.

Fatigue is finally starting to catch up to him, blur the edges of his consciousness. It’s a relief. It would be such a relief to be able to go ten minutes without having to look after someone else. (Which is an absolute lie, he knows what he’s like on his own and it’s no good.) He casts an eye over his employees, his crew, his people one last time before he drifts off. Almost everybody safe and accounted for. They survived. They’ll be fine.


	8. Gerry: The Stones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/post/186220849341/cruelestmonth-already-sent-in-a-prompt-but-then) [cruelest_month](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruelest_month/pseuds/cruelest_month) already sent in a prompt but then she asked for Gerry and how could I say no?

Gerry didn’t like the country. He was London born and bred, and he didn’t see the point of all that open space and fresh air. Sure, farmers had to farm somewhere, but that didn’t mean that he needed to be involved in the process at all. He’d get his vegetables from the supermarket, thanks, and never wonder where they came from.

The village where he’d disembarked the bus didn’t even have the decency to have much in the way of farmland, just some ragged scraps of woods and brambly fields. From the bus stop at the top of the hill he could see the remnants of a stone circle, less than half its circumference still standing, jutting out of the landscape like a giant’s fingers reaching for the sky.

 _Vast? Buried? Both?_ he wondered as he hitched his messenger bag more firmly onto his shoulder and started to trudge down the road toward what passed for a town centre. Smirke hadn’t written anything about stone circles, at least not that he had read, and Mary had made him read pretty much everything the old coot had written. _Probably he didn’t like the country either, and never thought about them._

It didn’t take long to find the place he was looking for. The town centre boasted of two pubs, a handmade furniture place that looked like it hadn’t been open in months, and a charity shop that had an opening hours sticker in the window with none of the actual opening hours filled in. When he shoved on the door, though, it opened, and Gerry stepped into the dim interior.

“Why do charity shops always have to be so spooky inside,” he muttered to himself, pausing to let his eyes adjust to the low light.

“CanIhelpyoufindanything,” a bored teenage girl asked from the cash register.

“Just browsing,” Gerry called out, ducking further into the shop and behind a rack of appalling floral dressing gowns before she could decide to take notice of the fact that he clearly wasn’t a local and wonder what he was doing browsing a shitty charity shop in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t have a good answer for that. “My mum has a sixth sense for the locations of supernatural books that, if you’re lucky, will only try to eat you when you read them” only invited more questions.

It took him a few minutes to find it. There wasn’t just one bookshelf, books were crammed in everywhere there was room, a Nora Roberts hardcover here, a John Grisham paperback there. Eventually he spotted it tucked between a collection of old-fashioned alarm clocks and a weathered jewelry box: a slim, leatherbound quarto-sized volume in black. The gold foil had worn off the spine and the tooling was impossible to read in the dim light. There wasn’t really any question, but still he tugged on a pair of gloves from his bag and flipped open the cover to find the familiar bookplate. The title page opposite made his eyes want to cross, made him want to stare at it until he could puzzle out what it said, even if it took hours.

Gerry closed the book firmly and strode up to the cash register. “Just this, please,” he said, waving the book at the bored girl. She squinted at him but thankfully didn’t try to take it, just punched a couple of buttons on the ancient machine, took his 50p, and went back to her phone.

Outside, the book stowed deep in his bag, Gerry surveyed the stone circle again. It might be interesting to see if there really was anything powerful up there, and the next bus wouldn’t be through for several hours. Then he snorted, shook his head at himself, and headed for the nearest of the two pubs.


	9. Martin: The Burning Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/post/186292468766/theweefreewomen-asked-for-martin-this) [theweefreewomen]() asked for Martin! This technically qualifies for #GiveMartinHugs2k19 but I’m not tagging it with that because it’s still pretty angsty. Sorry, Martin.

It wasn't surprising that Martin was having nightmares. It would probably be a worse sign if he wasn't, honestly, after everything he'd been through in the past couple of years. He'd thought it was bad when he'd first started at the Institute, which also happened to be the first time he'd lived alone -- he would spend all day following up citations on people's stories about moving into a new home only to find their things moving on their own and a presence watching them while they slept, and then come home to a dark, empty flat and have to turn on every light and check every corner before he could even begin to relax. He'd thought about getting a dog or something, just for the company, but he couldn't really afford it and besides his landlord wouldn't have allowed it.

But the paranoia of those early years was nothing compared to this. There were nights it felt as if he didn't sleep at all, reliving two entire weeks barricaded in his flat listening to the squirming and the knocking. Other times he got a selection: the man with all the bones in his hands, the burning woman standing and watching a sleeping figure, the horrible distended thing that had been the thing that wasn't his friend. (Sometimes after those he'd wake up convinced he'd seen it take over Sasha, the real Sasha, but he still couldn't remember her face.) And every time he'd become convinced that the nightmares he was having just now were the worst of the lot, they'd switch it up again and he would have to remember a whole new set of horrors.

So, yeah, he wasn't sleeping well. His only consolation was that nobody was, so there was nobody to notice how run down he was. Not that there was anyone who would care. Jon was never around anymore, and now he was off in America doing god knows what. Melanie was obsessed with finding ways to murder their evil boss (and honestly, Martin wished her well, although he was sure there was no way she'd be able to pull it off). Basira spent every waking moment buried in a book, Sasha was dead and Tim --

Martin buried his face in his hands, leaned against the desk, and breathed deeply. This wasn't helping. This wasn't going to help and the best thing he could do was to stop thinking about how miserable everybody was and go back to work.

He didn't bother rubbing the tears from his eyes when he got up to put away the set of files he'd been working on and pull some new ones; he'd done this often enough now to know there wouldn't be any point for a good five minutes at least. And it wasn't like there was anyone around to see him cry, anyway.

Except there was. In the middle of the stacks he nearly tripped over Tim, who was sprawled on the floor with earbuds in, staring grimly into the distance. "Sorry!" Martin said reflexively, which was just annoying. If anything Tim ought to apologize for napping in places he knew people walked, but he knew better than to expect an apology from Tim either, so. Deep breaths.

But Tim was looking up at him not with his now-customary bitter anger but with a kind of shock that only fueled Martin's foul mood. "D'you mind?" he snapped, and that at least sounded more like he felt.

"Nah," said Tim, climbing to his feet with an easy grace Martin had always admired. Then, unbelievably, he leaned over and wrapped his arms around Martin's shoulders.

Martin froze. This wasn't -- he didn't -- this was -- God, it was nice. He slumped against Tim, who held him up like it wasn't an effort. Belatedly Martin realized that he probably ought to hug back, and hie lifted his arms and squeezed Tim's waist tentatively.

Tim squeezed back and said in his ear, "I'm not gonna tell you that everything will be okay, because it won't." His voice was low and rough -- still angry, but it sounded like he was on the verge of tears, too. "But you can't break down on me now, okay? Everyone else is a fucking mess around here, we need someone who can hold it together."

He laughed a little hysterically into Tim's shoulder, but the shock had knocked all the tears out of him for now. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah. All right."

"Good man," Tim whispered. He let go of Martin with a clap on his shoulder, then he stuck his earbuds back in and disappeared off to wherever it was he spent all his time now. Martin stood there among the shelves for a few minutes more, breathing deep breaths, and then he grabbed his files and went back to work.


	10. Jared Hopworth: The Plant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com/post/186318911411/craigtucker-asked-for-jared-hopworth-imay-have) [@craigtucker](https://craigtucker.tumblr.com/) asked for Jared Hopworth! I…may have accidentally made him Softe? But I love this simple Flesh man who just wants some good bones.

Jared never did have much ambition. It had been his dad's favorite complaint - "Jared, you've got no ambition, you'll never amount to anything." The bones didn't change that, not really, but they did give him something to focus on, which was almost the same thing. When he'd been human there hadn't been anything that could keep his attention for too long, but now the bones sang to him whenever he started to get distracted.

It didn't bother him, not being human. Far as he could tell, humans didn't have much going for them. They could be as nasty as anything Jared had met since the bones, and they'd never really considered him one of them anyway. Course it went the other way round too: some of the monsters he'd met could be just as foolish and deluded as any human. That Han fellow who'd kept bothering him about some kind of ritual, for instance. Silly thing to care about; why would he want to make over the world when he finally had something good in his life? And it hadn't worked out in the end, anyway.

Tom Han was long gone now, as was the gym and all the friends he had helped to find their perfect bodies. Well -- they were still around, for the most part. They just didn't need him any more. Jared wasn't one for moping, waste of time really, but he had gone back to see the old gym once. It was empty now, with a faded For Sale sign in the window, and the little patch of flowers by the front door had gone all thin and scraggly. Jared would never have admitted it to anyone, but he was very fond of those flowers. They were different every year they came up, taller, shorter, whiter, pinker, and he silently cheered them on every time they changed. There was no one to watch them change now. He'd walked away from the gym and never looked back.

He was maybe a little aimless now; he could have started another gym, maybe, but it wouldn't be the same. Cutting people up for money was boring, and it had been a while since anybody had tried to find him anyway. So he went back to working on himself: not with any goal in mind, just trying things on, seeing how flexible he could really be. Very flexible, as it turned out, much more than he'd been able to manage before. He stopped going out in public except when he really wanted to hear someone scream, then stopped going out during the day at all. He wasn't ashamed. It was just more hassle than it was worth, dealing with people who'd get so worked up about a little thing like an extra arm. Besides, his experiments needed a lot of bones, and they were much easier to come by at night.

Jared moved around a lot; squatting was simple but didn't make for a good long term plan. So when he came home one night, half a dozen new bones still settling down in his ribcage, to find a crisp white envelope in the middle of the floor, he figured it must have been meant for whoever this place actually belonged to. It had his name on the front, though, written with enough elegant loops and curls it took him a minute to see it. On the back, the envelope was sealed with a sticker: a small, leggy flower.

He opened the letter.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come yell about TMA (or RQG) with me, I have too many feelings  
> [@j_quadrifrons](https://twitter.com/j_quadrifrons), [backofthebookshelf](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com)


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